Iconic Images

Malcolm X during his visit to enterprises owned by Black Muslims. 1962. © Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos

Throughout Eve’s career she aimed to “show something you wouldn’t have otherwise seen.”

She brought back images that have since come to symbolise important movements, events, people and places of the second half of the 20th century.

“I was amused recently at an international centre of photography group show of pictures of Malcom [X]. The lead picture was one of mine: a huge smiling profile of him looking smart; hat gold watch and Masonic ring worn jauntily. A group of young black photographers came over to talk to me. “Thank you,” they said “for making him look like a dude.”

- From “Eve Arnold: in Retrospect”

“Eve's name is rarely printed without the prefix "legendary".

“Legendary pioneer for female photojournalists. Legendary white woman who went on the road with Malcolm X. Legendary for photographing every American president for four decades. Legendary Eve set the standard for a "new normal" in which we would see our stars "behind the scenes". She photographed Marilyn in the bathroom with her skirt hitched up; Marlene Dietrich with no makeup; Anjelica Houston hugging her director daddy John and a young student Paul Newman before he had ever made a film. Legendary Eve deserved her tag: she went to China when it was closed, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Russia when it was the enemy – she was never deterred.”

- Beeban Kidron OBE, Film director and Member of the UK House of Lords